Naps!

Oh, the naps. We should talk about the naps again...Dillon varies between two to three naps a day. And I don't go crazy (new me) when she misses a nap (usually the 3/4pm nap), but I am super surprised that she can stay up for nearly FOUR hours between naps sometimes! Mostly, they say that babies around 4-6 months of age can only stay up for 2.5 hours at the most.
Of course, I realize why she would much rather hang out with us than sleep. All day long all we do is entertain her and make her laugh. Who wouldn't prefer that? I hate sleeping!!
Dillon is growing pretty fast these days, I think. She seems to be getting longer though people still always say, "She's so tiny..." when they meet her and learn that she is 5 months old. So, off I go AGAIN to shop online for her...the shopping never ends. Wheee!! I LOVE shopping!!

The Farm

We took Dillon to the farm today to check out some cows (we are cowboarding - meaning we own part of a cow and now we can buy raw milk), the sheep and some chickens! She had such a fun time. She loved the chickens!
Apparently, raw milk is good for babies. The woman at the farm talked about how this one woman had a preemie (born at 26 weeks) and after the baby left the hospital, she still had an underdeveloped esophagus (or something like that) and had a gag reflex if she ate anything solid. So, she fed her daughter raw milk ONLY until she was 6 years old at which point the girl measured up to par for all percentages in height and weight. When the drs asked what kind of milk the mother had been feeding the daughter, the mother replied, "raw milk." The doctor's reply was to look at the little girl and say, "you are a very lucky little girl." Whoa! What? That is amazing.
Also, Debbie, the owner of the farm also had celtic sea salt from France that has 100% of the minerals intact. It's the only sea salt that is dried in the sun and dried in clay vats...as opposed to cement that can leak minerals. AND, because it has all the minerals necessary for your body, there was a man who ate it in place of the regular salt you buy at the grocery stores and he cured his high blood pressure!
It was quite an educational day for us!

Yeah...new blog name

Yes, Genius I am not. If I didn't want G to know I had a blog, then I probably shouldn't have named it and titled it Dillon's mom...
Anyhooo...I like this blog name better because certainly I would rather hatch an egg than have a baby!
A) the chick incubates in an egg outside the body. There is no gross malformations of the body to incubate a chick. Which leads me to
B) a hen just sits on the egg to incubate it until it is ready to hatch. I can do that. I'm really good at sitting in one spot for long periods of time. Just get me a crochet needle, some yarn, a couple of good books and a stack of magazines! AND, if a girlfriend should call up to invite me for some cocktails, I could stick the egg under a heat lamp in my stead, go have drinks and just come back and resume where I left off! Genius! :o)
C) a chick pops out of her egg ready to conquer the world! Sure, her mother might hunt and peck for her for a little bit (I'm not even sure about that), but the girl is on her own two feet from the get go! Hey, that's pretty talented. Soo often I think, "Gee Dillon why can't you run to the fridge and get yourself something to eat?"

Okay, okay. All that aside, D is at a pretty fun age right now. We are constantly cracking up at her. She does the funniest things. Sadly, oftentimes I am thinking about the funny things while I am putting her down for her bedtime and then I crack up and startle her out of her sleepy state. Drats! So then I have to divert my mind to something more serious...like...algebra. (?? Where'd that come from??)

The case of the missing flop

Isn't lovely to be able to watch the progress of a baby's development.
Your baby... "Ahhh, cherish these moments," they say, "they are but so
fleeting."
Yes, so fleeting. These monumental moments that span for a few days
sometimes, as in now. Dillon has so cleverly mastered her flip yet has
yet to discover her flop. The sheer frustration wakes her up and upon
being assisted with a flop from mom, she is then even more confused
and so upset now she can't get herself back to sleep. After much
cuddling from mom she manages...until a couple hours later where she
is once again flipping without her flop. She's so fond of her new
trick, she likes to practice in her sleep. Sometimes, she will just
sleep on her stomach, too tired to continue practicing. But other
times, the frustration gets to her and then mommy comes into
play...again.

Baby

Well, I must admit that it is quite incredible to see Dillon's growth these days. I mean, I'm not enamored with the whole process by any means but I am intrigued. It is fun to see how she is discovering her feet and hands, when she zones in on her fingers and then zones out on her toes. I often wonder, what must be going through her little mind - What are these things that are connected to my body and how funny that I can make them move like that.
She seems to grow and change every day and I think just now we are really starting to understand what her cries mean (well, it's either she's tired or she's hungry - depending on how many hours she's been up) and what happens when she is overtired - TOUGH to put down...(Ohhh, now I get it when they say it will take a lot longer to put her down if she is overtired.) Well, it just takes perseverance, I think.
I am a lot more lax now on her schedule though I am still mindful of it. And, I am diligent about keeping up with her solids/bottles/diapers/sleep via trixietracker.com I mean D-I-L-I-G-E-N-T. I can't live without knowing exactly how much time has transpired, etc. However, now that we seem to be exiting the house a lot to do a lot of random things, I don't always log her sleep times in the car or stroller because that's not really great sleep anyway. I am also not very rigid when it comes to her bedtime anymore. It's anywhere around 6:30p - 8p. We just judge by her signs of tiredness and oftentimes we have her out so long she'll miss a nap here and there so will recover a bit later in the day to go to bed at a specific time. Baby steps for me....baby steps for me not to be so militant. Though I still catch myself getting frustrated with her sometimes if she does not go down for naps. Then I feel bad because it's not her fault. It's that we've messed with her schedule and made her overtired.

Solids

D is on solids and has now tried pear, apple, banana and avocado. She likes avo the best. So much waiting goes into babies...I wish I could feed her everything! She clearly wants to try everything. When we bring her out to eat, she leans in towards us when we are eating and wants what we are having. She now loves to hold her own cup when we feed her water. The girl is an independent!
It is odd that all pediatricians tell you to start your baby on rice cereal. Rice cereal constipates. Why can't we start them out on oatmeal cereal? Apparently because oats have a slight allergic tendency? But everyone that I have spoken to that has fed their baby rice cereal has found that it constipates the baby and they are so strained when they are making their hard little poops. I am going to start D on oatmeal today.
Uh, started her on carrots yesterday and was so excited that the steamed carrots smelled like roasted yams. And then realized that it smelled that way b/c my boiler pot had run out of water and I had a cake of carrot juice blackening the bottom of my pan? Whoops!
ALSO our baby food book gave us a little tidbit that a little fat (like a pat of butter) helps the body absorb the beta carotene in the carrots! But we didn't have butter so G suggested coconut oil WHICH BY THE WAY upon further investigation turns out is a much better and healthier fat source than butter! Yeayy! So excited!! Off to grind my oatmeal.

Some days will be like this...

Tonight, D did not seem to want to go to sleep. I put her down to sleep for the night and she started crying after milling around in her crib for a bit. Not anything to be alarmed about but then 30 minutes later, her cries have escalated and she is wailing. So sad. So I went in and tried to soothe her. Picked her up and then just brought her out to play with her a little more - for the next 10 minutes.
As we are walking back to her bedroom, she starts wailing. Then cries some more, gets a bit drowsy but still cries some more, loudly too. Ooh, poor baby. I finally put her down in her crib when she calmed down a bit and then she fell asleep. Whoa...craziness.
Meanwhile, she had a great day with naps. Every time I put her down for her nap, I put her down with her eyes wide open. She just tosses around a bit and then falls asleep! No crying!
I guess one can't ever expect a full 24 hour easy day, right? Whhhhyyyy...

Now we're cookin'

Yes! Now I'm more interested in my daughter. Dillon, at close to 5 months IS a fun age! Yup, I would have another baby if she'd come out of my womb and be 5 months already. At this age, she laughs all the time, she is super alert and has the cutest hand/arm, feet gestures and great facial expressions.
It's really quite incredible to see how she develops every day. As mentioned before, she is not swaddled anymore so it's fun to watch her in the video monitor while she sleeps. When she is moving around while trying to get to sleep, she will wiggle all around her crib and we put these two rolled up hand towels by her head because she seems to seek those for comfort when we first put her in, but, as she is rolling around, she'll grab those, unroll them and use them to cover her head or her whole face. It's comical.
I'm thinking about cutting out all nighttime wakings for Dillon...when she wakes up to eat at night she only takes in about 3-4 ozs. That's not really worth it to me to be waking up, I think. We'll see. I'm gonna track her intake for the next couple of days...oh wait, we are headed up to St. Louis again so there will be no sleep training there. Well, it will be good for me to gauge how much she is really taking in during those nighttime wakings and just stop them altogether. I really think she just wakes up in the middle of the night for some snuggling. It's cute and she's cute when she is eating and sleeping at night and I do love snuggling with her, but, eh. Sleep is better. She gets plenty of snuggles during the day. :o)

Are all babies super loud?

Or is it just mine...because she takes after me? Dillon has now really found her voice and is not shy about using it. She yells when she is bored, when she is hungry, even when she is just testing out her new voice!
I took her with me to the store today. Had her with me in the dressing room and she's sitting there talking and yappin, but we're not talkin' the gentle babbling of any old baby girl, no, we are talkin, like, Fran Drescher type yappin. The whole store heard her. So much so that when I came out, the two old gentlemen running the store commented, What's the baby cryin about?
To which I calmly replied, "Oh, she's not crying. She's just talking." And smiled sweetly.
Oh that Dillon...
She is REALLY loud these days. And Greg says, Honey, I think it's time we tell Dillon that we don't respond to yelling. You know, just say to her, "Dillon, we don't yell."
To which I responded, "Oh yeah...that's really gonna work when she doesn't even know her own name..." haha!
She is too funny.

Unswaddled - day two

Oh...I knew it was too good to be true. :oD
I mean, sure, D is still a great baby but I guess the only reason why she was so agreeable the first day was because she was so super tired from a long weekend away.
Yesterday was a bit of a battle. She went down begrudgingly for her naps (for one, she cried about 30+ minutes before actually falling asleep), but now her naps seems shorter because she's not swaddled. That's okay. She'll learn.
this morning, which would make it day three, she refused to sleep. She has been crying and hanging in her crib for almost 40 minutes now. Of course, Greg can't take it so he went in rock her to sleep. I mean, it might be self defeating, but oh well...
She slept fine last night. I'm really glad that she is unswaddled anyway so whatever...here we go again. Basically, having a baby just entails A LOT of crying if you want to make any improvements. Well, unless, like the lady who cleans our house, her son slept all the time. She had to wake him to feed him...and he's still a sleeper. Fine. I'm glad that Dillon won't be a sleeper when she grows up cuz I'm not a sleeper.

Unswaddled - night one

I might have the best daughter in the world. Tonight is her first
night sleeping without her swaddle and she went down without one peep.
Fell asleep on the bottle and fidgeted a bit as I put her down but
then just went right to sleep!
She woke herself up around 10pm because she flipped onto her stomach
and doesn't yet know how to flip back. I went in and turned her back
onto her back, stroked her a bit and left the room. Sure, she cried a
bit but got herself back to sleep. She's the best.

Babies and milestones

I'm beginning to think that all babies are the same and really not too much work needs to be done to get them to reach their milestones? Dillon recently has been fighting out of her swaddle, but now she knows how to turn over onto her stomach, but can't turn back around. This is not alarming, though because she also knows how to position her head so she's not suffocating.
In any case, we'd like to just get rid of the swaddle since she gets out of it and then wakes herself up.
Ooh, this weekend was a bit challenging because we spent the holiday weekend at Greg's parents and his sister flew in Saturday night with her 3 year old and 1 1/2 year old. Eeks! So, while Dillon was getting out of her swaddle and turning around, I am trying to get her to not make a lot of noise in the middle of the night (like, 4am) and wake up the whole household. That equals me staying up from 4am - 5:30am rocking her, putting her down, picking her back up when she cries. Oh my...so tiring. I mean, what an inopportune weekend for her to be practicing her shenanigans. I was so glad to be going back home on Sunday.
In the car ride home I said to Greg, "We are unswaddling her and I am going balls out. I am not going to take steps as most people do with first swaddling with one arm out...then two..."
I just don't have the patience for that. She will learn to sleep unswaddled if she has to sit there and cry for her naps...
Well, guess what? She is going down for her naps just fine! Totally unswaddled! She was just ready for it.
And, I was equally impressed with Dillon this weekend as we were super busy with meeting up with Greg's friends and their babies and then with his entire family. All schedules were off and we just winged it. And she did great. She did not fuss or cry. She was totally happy to be in the mix, didn't matter what time it was. Though her bedtime is usually 7pm, she had a late nap one night and woke up around 6:50pm. She was crying and her eyes were closed as she is not used to actually waking up after going down for bedtime and yet, we just picked her up and took her out to G's aunt's house and she was fine. Didn't go to bed until around 9pm and never once fussed. Was all smiles in fact.
I am now really excited for LA and NY! Yeayy!

Yoga...

So, when I was preggers greg's sister was nice enough to send us two DVDs. One was happiest baby on the block and the other was pregnancy yoga with rainbow mars.
I'm not a huge fan of yoga so I didn't really use that disc. Greg had mentioned it a couple times and in encouragement he and his sister kept saying, "the key to a calm baby is yoga..." And my response was always, "the key to a calm baby is a calm mother and lots of love...not yoga"
So yesterday I had the chance to point out, "see? The key to a calm baby is not yoga..."
And Greg said, "well, she wasn't calm in the beginning.."
To which I responded, "uh because she was starving....um, also because you were pushing the breastfeeding thing."
Silence. Yup, I got the last word on that one. Hah!